AugustaRoad.com affiliates with Sotheby’s International Realty

One of the Upstate’s leading residential real estate brokers, Joan Herlong, is now affiliated with Sotheby’s International Realty, a pairing that she believes will help make Greenville’s profile a little higher around the world.

Prior to her affiliation with Sotheby’s International Realty, Herlong was a top deal closer with what is now Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices/C. Dan Joyner Realtors. In 2011, she launched her own company, AugustaRoad.com Realty, and grew it into a 20-agent firm.

Effective Sept. 13, Herlong’s company is now called Joan Herlong & Associates Sotheby’s International Realty.

The Greenville broker said she wasn’t seeking to affiliate with the international firm when it approached her earlier this year. The overtures included a daylong visit for Herlong and her husband, attorney William Herlong, to the company’s headquarters in Madison, N.J.

Herlong said she changed her mind about affiliating after learning about Sotheby’s International Realty’s powerful global network and that she would be free to list homes of any price.

“I was absolutely blown away by the truly global marketing reach that they have,” she said, adding that “when your home is on the market with Sotheby’s International Realty, anybody in the world can find you.”

For example, Herlong said, real estate investors in China use the Sotheby’s International Realty website, sothebysrealty.com, to find U.S. listings.

Now that the company is marketing local properties, Greenville should get some new attention, Herlong said.

“It will bring Greenville to the attention of people who weren’t even thinking about Greenville,” she said.

Herlong’s company is the fifth South Carolina affiliate for the Sotheby’s International Realty brand. The others are in Bluffton, Charleston, Lake Keowee, and Pawleys Island.